Dr. Fagan is a tenured Professor and the Director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Dr. Fagan is the Associate Director of Cancer Prevention Population Sciences in the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute and Senior Advisor to the Director of the Office on Smoking and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prior to these appointments, Dr. Fagan served as Program Director for the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center and served for 10 years as a Health Scientist in the Tobacco Control Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health and Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A.), Tulane University School of Public Health (M.P.H.), and Texas A&M University (Ph.D.).

For over 25 years, Dr. Fagan has conducted research that seeks to reduce tobacco- and cancer related health disparities in racialized and ethnic groups, women, people who live in low resource and rural communities, and in youth/young adult populations.  Dr. Fagan has spent much of her career examining factors associated with flavored tobacco use and identifying strategies to reduce flavored tobacco use, including menthol cigarette, flavored cigar, and electronic cigarette use. Her community research has focused on building community capacity to address chronic disease disparities and developing social structural interventions as a strategy to address underlying social determinants of chronic disease disparities.

Dr. Fagan enjoys spending time with her family, gardening, boating, listening to live music, and eating good food. She is a fan of James Baldwin, and believes that, “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Dr. Fagan has dedicated her life to working with diverse groups of people to change circumstances that help people live healthy and happy lives.